[Bell Historians] Re: Clock = Klok = Bell

[Frank King]

Dear Eddie,

Your quote from Grimm's Etymological Dictionary
is most interesting and I was particularly taken
by the first sentence:

  Bells, which were brought from Northern Africa
  to Italy in the sixth century, are also found
  in the British Isles from the sixth century,
  then in France and Germany.

It would be good to know a little more about the
chronology of the geographical spread and the
associated linguistic usage.

The implication is that bells were unknown in
Europe before the sixth century and their
arrival and spread was via two main routes:

 1. Bells arrived in Italy from Northern Africa
    and (from what is stated later) the Italians 
    used the word *campana* to mean bell.  Then,
    with the exception of France, this word was
    taken up where Romance languages were spoken.

 2. Seemingly quite separately, and from an
    unspecified source, bells arrived in the
    British Isles about the same time and (again
    from what is stated later) the word *cloc*
    (and variants) was used to mean bell.  This
    word and its variants then spread to France,
    Germany and northern Europe.

The OED's conjecture that cloc and its friends
were probably echoic in origin seems plausible.
This is just an imitation of the sound of rather
primitive bells [ and a few I have rung :-) ]

Given abundant evidence that cloc was around in
the sixth century we have to accept that *bell*
was relatively late on the scene.  The OED gives
1200 as the first known usage.

Maybe cloc persisted alongside bell until
mechanical timepieces appeared?

This doesn't explain why we chose to call these
timepieces by the component that sounded the
hours (when other languages don't) but, given
that we made that choice, it seems that cloc(k)
might have been as strong a candidate as the
Johnny-come-lately word bell.

As it happens, one French word for clock is
*pendule* which is another example of naming a
device after one of its components.

There is one line in the Grimm quote which I
am still troubled about:

  ...in almost all Romance languages the word
  for "bell" is derived from the Latin campana...

I am slightly doubtful about whether *campana* is
proper Latin at all.  I don't believe the Romans
had bells [the sixth century was long after the
Fall of Rome] so I don't think *campana* would
exist in classical Latin unless it meant something
rather different.

Alongside this quibble, I bring in an intriguing
quote from the OED.  This has an entry for campana
which refers to S. Isidore's Etymologiae, which is
arguably the first ever Encyclopedia.  It ran to
20 volumes and in XVI.xxx.6 it says:

  Campana a regione Italiae nomen accepit,
  ubi primum ejus usus repertus est.

The OED explains:

  This refers to the ancient statement that bells
  were either invented or first used in churches
  at Nola in Campania.

Significantly, Isidore's dates are 560 to 636 so
he was around when bells were coming in.  He was
Spanish but as Archbishop of Seville and also a
Saint we may assume he had some knowledge of
what went on in churches!

It seems wholly implausible that bells were invented
in Nola [which is on the far side of Vesuvius from
Naples] but the "first used in churches" assertion
seems to be worth exploring.  

The word bell doesn't appear in the New Testament
which is unsurprising since bells didn't exist in
Europe or the Holy Lands at the time.

Some church somewhere must have been the first to
decide that bells were a good idea and I am as
happy to let Nola have that accolade as anywhere
else!

Frank King